December 18, 2008

It's Breast Not To Ask!

When it comes to pregnant women, my misguided attempts at chivalry frequently backfire.

Whether it's nobly giving up my seat on the subway or making friendly conversation by inquiring about a woman's due date, I've basically reached a point where I absolutely NEVER ask a woman if she's pregnant unless she's in the hospital, has her feet in stirrups, and the baby is at least halfway out.

Unfortunately, I somehow forgot to pass this important life lesson onto my four-year-old daughter.

Today, the Peanut had her holiday party at school. Out of the corner of my eye, I see the Peanut beckoning to one of her friend's moms. "Can you come here please? I want to ask you a question."

The woman walks over to the Peanut, gently leans over and says, "Hi Sweetie, what is it that you want to ask me?"

The Peanut points to each of her hugely ginormous breasts and says, "So, do you have twins inside there?"

The woman is not quite sure she heard correctly so, to my utter chagrin, she asks the Peanut to kindly repeat the question.

Regrettably, the Peanut assumes that she is being asked to repeat the question because the woman is obviously hard of hearing. So what does she do? She stands up, explicitly points to each of the woman's giant breasts again, and yells out, "I said, you have two GIANT tummies! Does that mean you have twins inside there? WHAT.ARE.THEIR.NAMES?"

Completely mortified, I quickly pull the Peanut aside and whisper a lecture in her ear about never assuming that a woman is pregnant. I don't remember exactly what I said but I vaguely recall babbling random things like "false assumptions," "macromastia," and "mammoplasty."

Of course the Peanut looked at me like I was totally nuts and went back to shoving a giant cupcake in her face. Meanwhile, I simply made eye contact with the woman and and gave her a look conveying not only my sincerest apologies but also my total embarrassment.

However, I've got to admit that it's been four hours since this happened and I've still got an enormous grin on my face. That shit is straight-up funny. I tell you, this parenting thing is a barrel of non-stop laughs.

Ok, your turn. What's the funniest or most embarrassing thing to come out of your kid's mouth? Special prize to the story that makes me laugh so hard that Diet Coke comes out my nose!

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I was with my 4 yr old and 6 yr old sons at Target (they were doing their Christmas shopping). They wanted to buy some sort of "artwork" but I told them they were all out of their budget. As I was leaving the aisle, my 6 yr. old shouts at me "WHAT'S A HAPPY WHORE?" I asked him where he heard that word (while trying not to make eye contact with all the people staring at us) and he says it's on the sign "H-A-P-P-Y H-O-U-R." After he explained, I think I was more upset that he didn't know how to read "hour."

When my son was 6, he came home from school in tears, upset because his teacher laughed at him. He was upset and devastated that his favorite teacher laughed at him. After a little bit of coaxing and many promises of not laughing at him as well, he revealed that he asked his teacher a question and she laughed at him.

The question? "What is black toast intolerance?"

I stood there, puzzled. Black toast intolerance. I started saying it over and over, gradually getting faster. Then the light came on.

"OH! You mean lactose intolerance?"

"YES!" he said, "Black toast intolerance. What is it?"

While it was hard not to laugh at him, I explained what it was and what Lactaid was for. To this day, I still get a laugh about it, and vow to tell his future wife someday. (He is now 16 and cringes when I tell this story.)

When my daughter was 2 years old, she, like most children that age, she was very focussed on gender disctinctions. "Daddy is a boy", "Mommy is a girl", "I am a girl" and "Daddy has a penis" , "I have a vagina", etc. Sometimes delinating the entire family and all her friends.

Once I was in a public washroom stall. Speciifically it was the shroom at her music class at the Royal Conservartory in Toronto.

As she done had done many times before she said "Daddy, do you have a penis?", I gave my usual response "yes Daddy has a penis".

And then she said "Do you have a big one?"

I wasn't ready for that question and simply laughed, which made her angry as my daughter hated being laughed at and she shouted "DO YOU HAVE A BIG PENIS?"

I realized I had to give some sort of response that would be acceptable to her or she would continue with the questioning so, I think I said something like "Boys have small penises and men have bigger penises. Daddy is a man so my penis is bigger then a boys"

The interrogation was adjourned and left the stall to face the other men in the washroom who were doing there best to break out in laughter.

It wasn't my kid, but a classmates. During a Saturday art class, one of my classmates, Hester, was forced to bring her little 4 year old daughter to class. During the assignment, the room would typically become very quiet as the instructor liked to play varied classical music while we worked.

Hester's daughter took this opportunity to blurt out, VERY LOUDLY "my mommy doesn't live with my daddy anymore"

When my son was 20-months old my husband took him to work one afternoon. My husband introduced the boy to his boss, saying, "This guy is the boss around here." Our son looks at him, shakes his head, and says, "No, mommy boss." That's my boy!

yesterday, when my kids and I were getting on the subway, a deranged passenger was exiting and ranting that "everyone can kiss my mothereffing n***er ass" and my 10 year old daughter looked at me and said "He sure knows his curse words!" pride!

When I was a kid, I always called myself "she" instead of "I" because that's what my parents called me. (How is she? What did she do today?) One day, while I was still working on my potty skills, my mom took me to some restaurant that happened to have plastic bench seats. When I inevitably peed my pants, it dripped across and puddled under my mom's butt. I announced loudly to the room "Well, she wet her pants again!" and my mortified mom had to walk out of there with her own pants soaked.

2 girls ages 3 and 5. In the grocery store standing in front of the hot dogs and sausages figuring out which sausage needed to make red beans and rice. HOT looking 20 something that could have just stepped out of GQ next to me. My 5 year old yells "mommy I need to hold the big weenie. plleeeeaase I need it now" and my 3 year old then pipes up with "ohhhh yess I love the big weenie. Can I have one too?" Hottie starts to laugh and mortified I turn to him and say "not something you want to hear your 3 and 5 year old girls say. I think we may need to send them to the all girls Catholic school"

Mine is a rather contrived, yet hilarious story:
I worked at a daycare, watching a class of 9 toddlers. For my own amusement, I would often ask them, "How many kids can get on the swing?"
9 solemn toddlers:
"There can be only one!"
Ahahahaha.

This post made me laugh! Oh man...One of my favorites is when we were having a birthday party for my niece who was turning four. She walked up to my friend (who was enjoying a glass of wine) and gave her a slip of paper that said, "wino" and said, "Thanks for coming to my party!" My friend asked her what the note said and my niece gave her a look like she was totally dense and replied, "It SAYS 'W-I-N-O. Thank you for coming to my party.'"

I have two stories, one is mine and one was my sister-in-law.
Back when my SIL (Becky) was about 4 years old he father was a big fan of John Carpenter movies and apparently watched "The Thing" a bunch of time when Becky was around. One night her parents had a party and sure enough they watched "The Thing". Right at a certain part Becky pipes up and says "And this is where he says 'and f*ck you too'". HEE HEE.

A few years ago when my son was just learning to talk in intelligible words he had a bit of speech problem (like many young kids). For awhile anything that started with the letter "s" would sound like sh (like shush). We took him to a restaurant and he was standing on the chair. I kept telling him to sit, sit, sit. He laughs and repeats what0 I'm saying but when he says it, it sounds like "Sh*t, sh*t, sh*t." I'm sure I was bright red.

A couple of years ago, when my oldest kid was five, he developed a fascination with people whose bodies were different. I think it started with his baby brother, who had an NG-tube for a few months and later a G-tube; people asked about it a lot and maybe that got him to thinking that it was okay to ask about pretty much anything, since I usually explained it in a friendly manner (at least when I had the older children with me as well). One day, at the library for Story Hour, we saw a very large woman who probably weighed at least four hundred pounds. "MOMMY," he shouted at full volume, "LOOK AT HOW FAT THAT LADY IS, I THINK SHE'S THE FATTEST PERSON I'VE EVER SEEN! HOW DID SHE GET SO FAT???"

Did I mention we were RIGHT BEHIND HER?

I muttered an apology and jerked my son over into the ladies' room and had a very serious conversation with him about endocrine difficulties and body image issues and voice modulation and NOT POINTING OUT PEOPLE'S PHYSICAL DIFFERENCES BECAUSE IT IS NOT POLITE and he very earnestly asked what he SHOULD do if he saw someone really different and wanted to ask me something about them. That was a fair question. So I said "just ask me later when we get home and we can talk about it then."

Flash forward to a few days later at a fast-food restaurant when we get in line behind a man who is missing most of one arm and obviously has a prosthetic leg as well (it was summer and he was wearing shorts, and was rather tall so there was no way my kid would have missed that there was something different about the guy). "MOMMY!" my son bellows, and I shush him urgently, breaking into a cold sweat. "Later," I mumble, in what I hope is a very scary voice. "BUT MOMMY!" "SHUSH!" "MOMMY MOMMY I'M NOT GOING TO ASK YOU A QUESTION THAT WILL MAKE ANYBODY FEEL BAD, I JUST WANT YOU TO TAKE A PICTURE OF THAT GUY FOR WHEN WE TALK ABOUT HIM LATER!"

I turned purple and fortunately the man in question thought this was the funniest thing he'd ever heard, and when I tried to explain waved off my apology and said thanks for the laugh. I still think it took ten years off my life.

These are great! I had a "diet coke moment" reading about the hand-shaped glove.

I have one to add:
Shortly after having my 2nd child, my usually angelic 3 yr old decided to give me a day of whiney crabby hell. At the end of this day, my 3 yr old threw a fit, and i had that wave of take-a-yoga-breath-and-never-hit-your-kids moment, and my 3 yr old stopped screeching and asked, "What are you doing, mommy?" I replied, "I'm trying to be a good mother." She patted my back and said, "Oh, but you're not a good mommy."

Dude, I LOVE your blog. Being forced to come to work today, I decided to slack off and have spent the entire day reading your blog's archives. I've been laughing my ass off all day long. Thanks for the entertainment!

My Aunt was in a nursing home recovering from a broken hip. She desperately wanted to see my daughter who was 3 at the time and it was the holidays so against my better judgment I took her for a short visit. The nursing home was not the most well-kept I've ever seen. As we go in there are people sitting everywhere, some in wheelchairs, some at tables, the smell was bad. I wrinkled my nose and heard my daughter give a little "ewwwww", but we kept walking. As we were leaving walking down the hall, hurrying to the door, my precious daughter in her loudest voice says "TELL ME WHO SHIT AND DIDN'T FLUSH?" What can you do?????? I picked her up and ran out the door.

Great story MD! No kids of my own, yet. But my 6yr old nephew has some good ones. We were writing his teacher a goodbye card earlier this year. We said "what should we write?". He says "Dear Mrs. Smith, I will not be able to come to school tomorrow . . ." -- LOL! Well, we thought that was hilarious!

When my daughter was 4, I took her to an amusement park for the 1st time. On the way to the ticket counter, it started thunderstorming and pouring rain. We were standing with about a dozen other people when I explained to her that we would have to come back another day because the weather was bad. She crossed her little arms over her chest and with a big scowl on her face, says LOUDLY, 'I HATE this F*cking rain!!!' After a few shocked seconds(I was processing what she said), I grabbed her hand and walked, in the pouring rain, back to the car. Her Dad got an earful when we got home!

Awhile back, I was changing his diaper in a public restroom, as I was wiping him, he said "see? My penis there?" So, I chuckled and said, "yup, that's your penis." #3 says "Dada, have penis." Me, after pause, "yes, Dada has a penis." #3, "Dada have BIG penis!" Me: turning red... "uh..." chuckles from the stalls... guess Dada needs to not be walking around naked so much...

T has done nothing even remotely close to that. (Or Katherine up there.) But considering how liberally Nate allows her to watch family guy I'm waiting for some sort of horrible un PC outburst any day now.

In the days before we could order tickets on the internet, I was forced to stand in line at the box office for for the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, carrying my then 2-year-old daughter. As one would expect of symphony patrons, they were very quiet and my daughter quietly observed the people in the line as it moved slowly along, snaking through the stanchions and velvet cords. She perked up when a new face came into view and observed, loudly and clearly, "Mommy, that man has a moustache just like you!" All along the line I could see shoulders shaking. My daughter is 22 and I still haven't forgiven her.

We were at some giant box-store and a lady was blocking the row in front of us. My tiny brother marched up behind her and said, "Excuse me." "Hey lady." "Hey LADY." "HEY FAT LADY." She turned around in surprised and he smiled sweetly and said, "Could you please let us scootch by?"

When we first moved from Tokyo to San Francisco, I used to tell my older two kids "This is America! ENGLISH ONLY!" (At the time, they spoke mostly Japanese, and needed to get up to speed in English for school here.)

I was out shopping one day, with my younger one, who was then four years old. We came across a mother shopping with her own little boy, who was singing a cute song in Spanish.

"HEY!" my little xenophobe said to the other boy, echoing what he had heard me say to his siblings so many times. "This is America! ENGLISH ONLY!"

It was even more mortifying than the (many) stories we have involving parents' poop/fart/body part discussions in public.

But Metrodad, I think YOU should win, for your "You have to listen to the white man" post -- remember that one?

At about 18 months my son was playing with a steering wheel toy-he honked the horn and yelled "Move Ah-Hole!" Grandpa thought this was hilarious.

My husband's little brothers are about 20 years younger than my husband. They lived with us for about a year. We went to visit our elderly neighbor who loves to give candy and cookies to the kids. After about the 3rd cookie and 2nd piece of candy I started to give BIL "the mom stare" to warn him that he'd had enough. When he was offered another cookie he said (while pointing at me) "I can't, SHE keeps giving me mean looks and I'll get in trouble!"

Recently, my 3 yr old and I were walking through Target while my wife was busy shopping. As we passed the underwear section, the little man pointed and said with a big grin on his face, "Daddy look, BOOBIES!", as we walked by a bunch of women. Most of them had a disgusted look on their faces while I tried to fake mine.

Since you're a sports fan...my husband is a diehard Pittsburgh Steelers fan so he is constantly talking smack about the Cleveland Browns. One day my 3 year old son was on the toilet pooping and the hubby went in to check on him. Hubby said, "Oh man Ryan, your poop stinks!" My son responded, "Yup, my poop does stink just like the Browns!" A proud moment for my husband...

My partner, me and a couple of friends were commenting on the (in)adequacy of some of the men modelling underwear in a department store catalogue - out of ear and eyeshot of all of our kids. My 3 year old then walked up as we stifled our jokes and laughs, sits in my lap, takes a look and loudly says "Dat's a boy! And he dot a penis!" placing her finger right where the (utterly non-existent) penis was.

My former boss was in his car with his wife and 10yr old daughter. His wife tells the daughter that tomorrow dad's going to hang out with her because mom's going out with her friends to see a play. "What play?", asked my boss. "The Vagina Monologues," says his wife, and then realizes that her daughter's listening intently. My boss asks his daughter, did you understand that? And the daughter asked, "What's a Monologue?"

Last night the moon was really beautiful - just a sliver as we say. I was showing my son (3 y.o.) the moon and pointing out the bright "star" above it, Venus. I was explaining to him about planets and the like, he was so interested, it was adorable.
We go to meet my husband at the train and E was eager to show off his new knowledge. "Daddy do you see the moon? You can see its penis."

We were at the local police station because my car had been defected,(the window didn't wind down d'oh) anyway we were in the waiting room and this pretty shabby, beanie wearing unshaven hobo walks in and Miss 4 yells out, "That looks like my Daddy!"

My five year old and I were visiting my sister and mother in VA. After dinner, it was decided that I would drive mom back to her house. I talked to my sister about giving my son a shower and she said she'd do it.

I approached my son and told him that his auntie was going to help him with his shower and that I wanted him to cooperate with her.
He looks at her with a shit-eating grin and says, "you know I have to get naked for this, right?"

We had just adopted our then two year old son and we'd taken him across country to meet his new grandparents. We were leaving a baseball game in St. Louis and the traffic was awful. My father in law, frustrated by the sea of taillights, said I wish all these people would just get out of our way.

Our little boy pulled his pacifier out of his mouth and sang "Move bitch, get out da way. Get out da way."

I was trying to distract my son in the line at the grocery store (he was 3 at the time) by asking him "Do you know what next week is?" as it was going to be his birthday and I wanted to remind him to behave as we had planned a big party. After the second time I asked him the question, he turned to me and grinned and in his clearest cynical voice said "Why, you gonna knock me into it?" Ahem.....

Me and my threats coming back at me...the result of two engineers procreating....gah!

My 5 year old has told people for years, that mom and dad are always trying really hard to have another baby, everyday they try, she will say! (We're on fertility drugs)But the way she says it, gets looks, like we are constantly doing the dirty or something.

Also, when she was about 1, this pretty girl was admiring her at the store, and Peyton said, "I frow up on you" And at that moment, projectile vomit covered her.

My favorite was my friend's boy at age 4 or so, on the toilet while his marketing wizard mom was running her business from home, on the phone in the next room. The client on the other end of the phone clearly heard a wail from the bathroom: "Mommy!!! My POOP IS STUCK!!"

To my horror, she made a slight apology like "Augh, kids, what are you gonna do." and then went on to tell him what to do with the client still on the phone!!! I think my eyes were probably rolling across the floor at that point.